Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Bad Corolla Day

I had a meeting with my agency today, so I decided to work from home to avoid the morning traffic rush and head straight form home to my meeting.

I left home around 11ish. My hopes of a smooth drive dissolved when I got stuck in a jam that was caused by a Toyota Corolla that rear ended a brand new Porsche Cayenne... Poor Corolla!

Oddly enough, there wasn’t any major Rubbernecking, hence traffic was cleared in 10 minutes.

Few meters after that, I slow for another congestion. 15 minutes of driving at 0.2 KMPH, I noticed another Toyota Corolla (same year model color of the one above) idle in the middle the road and facing traffic.

From the looks of the banged up pick up truck on the side of the road, it seemed that the Corolla was rear ended on the side by the pickup truck. As a result, the Corolla made a 180 swerve in the middle the street and faced the incoming traffic.

The twist wasn’t the fact that second accident was in actually the OPPOSITE direction side of the road where I was (I thought I was a victim of Typical Dubai Rubbernecking behavior)… The real accident was actually on my side of the road. Someone was trying to cross the street was hit by a speeding car. The guy was lying on the floor surrounded by paramedics and police. The accident was on the road that leads to Garhoud bridge coming from City Centre (opps to CompuMe) – one of the worst roads in Dubai to cross. Leathal and almost impossible to cross.

From the looks of the overall situation, the real Rubbernecker was the Corolla driver on the other side who -most probably- decided to suddenly slow down to see what the hell happened to the guy who was hit and how he was hit..etc, before being rear ended by the pick up driver, who most likely wasn’t paying attention either cause he was rubbernecking himself.

Marwan, don't risk your life on a zebra crossing! I have never - never - seen a vehicle stop for people waiting at a zebra crossing. They're the same as trying to cross the road anywhere, you have to wait for a gap in the traffic and run like hell.

Moryarti, your experience is gonna pale into insignificance when we get the reports of this morning's fog carnage!